


Lady Stardust, Duchess of Haddon Hall

by attentat



Category: David Bowie RPF, Glam Rock RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-21
Updated: 2009-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:51:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/attentat/pseuds/attentat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angie always knew when David was in the middle of writing a song.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lady Stardust, Duchess of Haddon Hall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Isobel Marin](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Isobel+Marin).



Angie enjoyed just watching David. No one would deny that he was pretty to look at -- a delicate man, full of sex appeal -- but that wasn't the only reason for her observations. She enjoyed tracing the stretch of skin over his cheekbones, comparing the differences from one eye to the other, following the pale creamy chest down to his navel. She sometimes forgot he was a person, whole and entire, and remembered him in those flashes of body parts, pieces of humanity and physicality, as if he was a jigsaw puzzle someone left half undone. When she was with her son, she would examine him for signs of her husband, analyzing the lines of his face with her fingers instead of her eyes and wondering if David had giggled like that as a baby.

She wondered, when she was alone and secret, if it made her a bad mother if she felt more maternal toward David than Zowie. It was slightly irrational, but Zowie couldn't take care of himself because he was so young; David couldn't take care of himself because he was ethereal, because he didn't know how -- she felt as if she owed him more, whereas little Zowie would grow up someday. Zowie was negatively defined (he was not old enough, he was not big enough, he was not potty-trained), but David took up space. David was the shining bright center of the universe and they were all satellites around him. Angie felt sucked into his orbit.

But these thoughts were ridiculous and self-indulgent, and she could feel herself shying away from such hippie sentimentality. The transcendental bullshit the late sixties had marinated her in had never sunck very deeply into Angie's soul; she could use the words, but something inside her slipped away from the sense of grand Truth that she felt David deserved. Maybe it was because she was American, maybe it was because she was a semester away from a degree in marketing, but she could never take her own sense of inevitability about David seriously. Angie didn't trust the inevitable; the only good things were the ones you had to work for.

\---

Angie had walked past Suzie Fussey's hair salon on Beckingham High Street countless time. She would push Zowie in the pram and David would trail behind her, keeping a running commentary of his inner monologue .She liked those quiet Sunday mornings; David stopped being quite so controlled, quite so cold, and would use his fingers to entertain his child, slip his arm around her waist, and brush dry kisses against the revealed nape of her neck, her short platinum hair tickling his nose.

It clearly wasn't the hairdresser that caused such happy memories, but one night David said he needed a haircut, she twirled her fingers in his hair and tugged him into her lap, and thought.

She went into the shop the next day; she wasn't going to let her husband, her David, go into the shop blind. She needed to test it, and besides, she felt she needed a new look. Suzie looked at her a long time, her fingers tracing the line of her head. Angie felt the touch like ice, and suddenly felt warm deep in her belly. A good sign. Perhaps it was silly, but Angie tended to trust her sex drive.

Angie left with a wonderful head of hair in red white and blue, and Suzie Fussey was brought to Haddon Hall

Suzie didn't attempt to hide her frown at David's flowing hippie locks. "I can't be the only one who's totally done with that sort of hair, can I?"

Ronno, who was lounging in the dry bathtub, his legs sprawled and his guitar sitting on top of his crotch, snorted. "You aren't by a long shot, darling."

David squinted into the mirror and both Angie and Suzie studied him. As Suzie ran her fingers through David's hair, the same creative ritual she had done with Angie a few days before, Angie's eyes shifted away from David. Ronno was staring at Suzie's ass, and Angie smiled.

"I have a few pictures I tore out of Vogue," David said, uncertainly. "I was thinking red."

Several hours later, David's hair was cut and Suzie was sitting on Ronno's lap. Mick had left the bathtub, however, which was a small mercy.

David was sitting on the floor at Angie's feet, as Angie stiched one of the buttons back on one of his frocks. Angie found the work slow going, as she continually had to run her hands through David's hair, half marveling at the feeling of it standing up straight.

"You're going to ruin it," David said, smiling up at her. "It's too pretty for you to mess with."

"There's always more styling gel," Angie said, and ignored him.

\- - -

Angie always knew when David was in the middle of writing a song. On normal days, Angie rose far before David and spent the cool morning in Haddon Hall floating around her many chores. She would make breakfast for the entourage of musicians, artists, and aesthetes that slept in her hall, a veritable Jesus feeding thousands from a few potatoes and a dozen eggs. She would do laundry, iron, sew, clean, and basically put her finishing school to good use. She was trained to be a lady and run a household, and though her boarding mistress would likely scandalized at the members of the house, such training served her well. She would use such peaceful time to scheme, weaving machinations of fortune and success, always thinking of new ways for David to make it huge.

And when David rose, usually later than noon, she would push him toward the bath and make sure there was food left for him.

On days where David woke with a bit of melody in his head or the sound of a riff, he would sneak out of bed and hide, like a cat about to have kittens, holing up somewhere and giving birth to music. He would take the guitar and go out in the garden, or hide between the rich velvet curtains and the window, or sometimes take Ronno's traditional practice spot in the bathroom. They had built a little practice studio, but Ronno had grown up playing guitar in the bathroom and it was a long ingrained habit by now.

These days, such creative spurts came more and more frequently, collapsing onto each other as Ziggy Stardust began to take shape. Angie would sew costumes and dream about a stage show, a tart of a musician, dressed up in taffeta and lace. David would write and write, stopping only to record. Angie felt like the world was holding its breath and waiting, waiting.

She continued sewing, and cooking, and running her little salon, the logistical support for David's genius.

\- - -

And then, the album was finished.

The party had been massive, full of beautiful people doing beautiful things. Angie could still hear Ava singing in the main room, her voice high and pure. It was a disconcerting voice when compared with the dirty way she looked at you, the perfect curve of her breast.

David had held court for many hours in his salon at Haddon Hall, but had since retreated with Angie to their bedroom and they lay together, simply holding one another. Zowie was with the neighbors, but Angie didn't miss him. This was her world and her purpose, and she felt vaguely anti-feminist as she acknowledged the truth of it.

David ran his finger down between her breasts and she felt a fire licking underneath her skin following it.

"Ziggy will be it," she whispered to him. She had said much the same thing with Hunky Dory, constantly optimistic, knowing her husband's genius, but this time David looked liked he believed her.

"He has to be," David said. It wasn't an expression of defeat; it was an acknowledgment of inevitability, of perfection. The costumes were sewn, the tour dates were set – he would be on Top of the Pops within the next few days. Everything was swirling around him, and he looked serene underneath it. Other people might have flinched under so much attention, but David acknowledged it as his due.

Angie remembers that night the next year, when she watched Ziggy prance and purr on stage at Hammersmith Odeon, remembered the many years of preparation for such a magnificent breakthrough. She realized then, that it wasn't David so much that had rocketed to stardom – Ziggy had fallen back to earth.

Ziggy was Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop, and Terry, and a thousand other semi-crazed rockstars. Ziggy was uncontrolled, unhappy, an alien. She watched David play his music, reach his hands out to his fans, and then announce that they would never play again.

The rest of the audience looked shocked and she saw someone cry, but Angie was not worried. Ziggy had to fall from grace, or he wouldn't be a proper rockstar. It was David's particular brilliance that allowed him to have the ignoble fall several steps removed from his self.

Angie wasn't worried; David was inevitable.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this story and have a very Happy Yuletide!
> 
> Thanks J, as always.


End file.
